


no grave can hold my body down

by texastoasted



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: M/M, Red Oktoberfest, Suicide, implied speedingbullet, respawn system not working is a constant plot point apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 19:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20278825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texastoasted/pseuds/texastoasted
Summary: The respawn system goes down one June, and the mercenaries remember what it's like to be mortal again. Medic doesn't like abiding by the conventional rules of science, medicine, and death, especially when they're concerning someone he loves.





	no grave can hold my body down

Dell forced a swallow. It went down his throat dry, like a rock, scraping it raw the whole way. Blinking lights from the towering computers flashed soundlessly in the dark room. It was like an SOS, he mused, scratching his beard. An SOS that he didn’t know how to answer. It had started last week, when Scout had gotten blown up by a stray RED rocket. He didn’t show up at the front for at least ten minutes. Medic was mad, steam practically hissing from his nostrils, gore spattering the shoulders of his clean white coat. But Scout had sworn he hadn’t run off. He had only just respawned. Dell wouldn’t have put it past the boy to tell a little white lie if he’d taken a nap in the shade. But he had looked into Scout’s face, two wide blue eyes standing innocent between a smattering of freckles, and Dell knew he was telling the truth. Scout half didn’t believe them that it had been ten minutes. The issue had gotten swallowed up in the heat of battle and they soon all forgot about it.

The system had been taking its sweet time to spit them back out onto the unforgiving Earth. The wait was getting longer and longer. There was some general murmuring and frustration about it, but it really hadn’t boiled over until last night, which was why Dell was skipping sitting at the dinner table and in here with a dinner plate balanced on top of his toolkit.

He thought he had left a wrench in the respawn room, from tinkering around with the system to try to get it to speed up. He checked the spawn room first before the computer room, and jumped when he flicked the lights on and the darkness was extinguished, uncloaking Tavish, who was sitting on the floor.

“Tavish!” Dell said with a chuckle, one hand over his heart. It was beating like a jackhammer. “You gave me a hell of a fright, boy. What are you doing in the dark?”

An unpleasant silence hung in the air like a thick fog. Tavish was studying the tiles embedded in the floor, but he raised his head with what looked like tremendous effort, glaring at Dell with distrust. His fingers curled around what looked like Scout’s scattergun, resting near his leg.

“Who are you?”

“It’s me. Dell. The engineer. Your friend. Tavish, are you all right?” he took a couple steps forward, and then a few more when there was no protest. “Do you know where you are?”

Tavish shook his head slowly.

Dell stood there for a moment, wracked with indecision to leave him alone or not. “I’m going to go get Medic.”

“It hurts,” Tavish croaked, “God, my head.”

In one swift motion he raised the scattergun, the barrels resting under his chin, and pulled the trigger. It must have been millions of times that Dell had heard that gun go off, even in an enclosed space, but it was like nothing he had ever heard before. He jumped, and his curdling stomach sank, sinking into his feet that were propelling him out the door.

It was the middle of the night, but Medic was up.

He could barely explain on the way back, just the insistence that Medic come with him and see. The two of them stood there for several seconds, barely breathing, fear rooting Dell to the spot. He didn’t know what to think, or how to explain, or what the hell they would do if Demo came back the same way again. Suddenly, the body began to fade away, and then Tavish was on his feet again in front of them, tossing curses into the frigid air.

“Hey,” he said, visibly surprised to see the two of them. His lone eye flicked back and forth. “Party in here?”

“Do you remember anything?” Dell asked, quietly.

“I remember that I have a six-pack waiting for me in the fridge. Want in?”

“Why are you respawning in the middle of the night? What were you doing?” Medic asked.

“Ah, probably blew myself up again. Working on ammo. You both look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Dell said carefully. “Good night.”

Tavish gave them an odd look as he shouldered past them, whistling a familiar tune. Medic waited until the door closed to turn and look at Dell, his hands clasped in front of him.

“You were speaking gibberish when you came to get me. But he’s fine. What is the problem?”

“Before. I came here to get my wrench, and he was just sitting on the floor, doc. He looked all wrong. He didn’t remember who I was or where he was, and then he shot himself. Said his head hurt real bad.”

Medic opened his mouth.

“Not like sober Demo,” Dell said insistently. “He was different. Real confused.”

“I’ll examine him. What do you think?”

“You know how the system’s been buggy. I’m hoping there’s not something gone wrong. I’ll look at it tomorrow. Thank the Lord it’s Saturday.”

“Keep me updated,” Medic said in the clipped tone he took when he was worried, and strode out.

Dell was beyond frustrated. He’d been messing around with the system for hours and couldn’t find any problems. Maybe it was simply degrading. They’d been using it for years, after all, and it was the first of its kind. The long term effects weren’t exactly spelled out. He would have to let Miss Pauling know, but he knew the Administrator would expect him to fix it. Dell let out a breath between pursed lips. There should be some kind of evidence of a problem, but there wasn’t, and it was going to keep getting worse until he found it. 

“Hey, doc?” Engineer said from the doorway, in a low voice.

Medic looked up from the chessboard with mild irritation settling in the lines of his face. Heavy continued to study the pieces, one hand rubbing his chin, entirely focused. It was tempting to study him instead. He struck an impressive form, like an ancient statue of a god. 

“What is it, Herr Engineer?”

“Sorry to bother you, doc. Could you come with me?”

Medic hesitated a moment before rising to his feet. He immensely disliked being bothered after dinner, especially when he was playing chess with Heavy, but he was aware that Dell knew that. The click of his boot heels echoed down the dark hallway as the both of them proceeded to the respawn room. 

“I can’t find the problem. I’m going to call the Administrator. I don’t think...we should fight on Monday.”

“It’s that bad?”

“It’s unpredictable. Something is real wrong, but I can’t find anything to fix. Trust me, doc. Demo last night...it’s only been a week.”

“All right,” Medic answered. “We had best make sure no one has any nasty accidents, hm?”

“Keep that medigun at the ready.”

“You should sleep.”

“I ought to.” Dell ran a hand over the back of his head. “I ought to.”

They stood there for another moment in the dark, and then Dell bid him good night and walked away down the corridor. Medic allowed the darkness to swallow him. He knew that Heavy would patiently wait for him to return so they could continue their game of chess, and he could pretend that things were normal, but they were not anymore. Ordinary men lived without the respawn system and were fine, he reminded himself. They could last a little while without it, especially with the medigun. He repeated the same mantra in his head, steeling himself, willing the invasive thoughts to clear from his mind. But they lived in a battlefield, after all, and accidents were as prone as the bullet holes scattered around the outside of the base. He had half a mind to lock Heavy and himself in the medbay for a week and not come out. But Heavy would never agree to that, and neither would anyone else. 

“Everything is fine?” Heavy asked as he slid back into his seat.

“ _ Ja _ .”

Medic raised his eyes. Heavy was looking down over his reading glasses at him with the glare that meant he knew that Medic was lying, but he wouldn’t push it. A small smile came easily to his lips. “Later,  _ mein liebe _ .”

“ _ Da _ , after you lose.”

Medic snorted. On the couch, keeping lazy eyes on the television, Sniper tipped his hat down over his face.

There was a rapping at the door of the medbay, and Medic tossed a half-attentive glance over his shoulder, concentrating on buffing the stain out of a bonesaw. 

“Come in,” he called.

“I called the Administrator last night,” Dell told him with a sigh. “She wasn’t too happy about it, but says she’ll hold a ceasefire for the time being, and send some people down to give a second opinion.”

“There’s not much opinion that’s better than yours,” Medic said reproachfully.

“Thanks, doc. I sure hope so right now, though.” There was a beat of silence. “Had an accident this morning?”

Medic’s eyes fell on the surgical table, which had a neat bundle of white, bloodstained sheets resting on top of it.

“Surgery.” he said.

“You really think that’s a good idea, given our circumstances?”

“It was under control,” Medic answered him coolly. “And necessary.”

“Mind if I ask what it was about? Anything unusual? Related to the system?”

Medic shook his head. “No. Everything was normal. The medigun was working fine, Herr Engineer, I would not have opened anyone up if I had doubts.”

“Sorry, doc. Don’t mean to doubt you. I’m just a little jumpy, with everything going on. Do you think we should announce it to anyone?”

“Over breakfast is probably a good idea.”

“Yeah,” Dell agreed. “All right. It’s my turn, I’d better get started.”

Dell drummed his fingers on the doorframe before he left, the door swinging behind him. Medic put down the saw with a clatter. His fingers were shaking, and he willed them to stop.

“You’re taking all the waffles,” Scout whined in Soldier’s ear.

“There’s plenty, Scout,” Dell said in his mediating way. “Pyro, will you pass the strawberries?”

There was general conversation and the syrup bottle being passed around the table, a normal morning. Dell’s eyes rose to meet Medic’s. A throat was cleared.

“I’d, uh, like to talk with everyone about something.” Dell started, quietly, folding his hands like he was praying. 

“Soldier, you can’t convince me to run around the track on a bloody Sunday, and now you’ve roped Engie into it?” Demo complained, leaning back in his chair. He teetered, threatening to topple backwards, his coffee sloshing dangerously in his hand. 

“That’s not-”

“Engie likes running around on the track,” Soldier answered, gruffly. “Staying in shape-”

“I’ve got plans,” Scout announced to no one in particular. “Gonna go down to town with a girl I met last week.”

“Chicken restaurant is closed Sundays,” Heavy’s gentle voice rose above the din.

“Aw, fuck, really?”

“That chicken will make your cholesterol shoot through the roof,” Spy said with disdain.

“Like you’re the poster boy for health, mate,” Sniper said from under his sunglasses, a smile creeping along his face.

“Attention,” Medic said firmly, and sharply tapped his fork alongside the rim of his plate. “Quiet, all of you.”

“Thanks, doc. I wanted to say a ceasefire’s been called until further notice. The respawn system ain’t working right. So be extra careful. They’ll turn it off when the consultants get here, then we can work on it properly.”

“Really?” Sniper asked, reaching for the coffee pot. “Shit.”

“So if we die, we don’t come back?” Demo asked.

“It’s not just that.” Dell had a difficult time meeting his eyes. “There’s other problems. It’s not safe to use. But it could get to that.”

The mood was subdued for the rest of breakfast, attempts at conversation fizzling out like sparklers. 

It had been a quiet week, charged with silent energy, not different than during the snowy months where they were confined inside. Medic was grateful to have his own private quarters to retreat to. If he was next to Scout, perhaps, he might be driven insane by the sound of that hellish baseball hitting the wall over and over again. There was enough to keep him busy for a long while, but he felt restless, pacing all over the base. Maybe they had all gotten a little too confident with the respawn system to catch them if they slipped up. Pyro had spilled water from the kettle when making tea yesterday, and they stood with their arms spread against the kitchen cabinets, pinned to the spot for fear of slipping until Soldier came along with a mop. 

He had been looking forward to this Saturday, when he and Misha were having a chess game that there was a good German chocolate bar on. They’d been even the past few weeks, going back and forth with victories and losses like a tug of war. It would be exciting. Medic smiled to himself as he dried his hands and set off purposefully to the kitchen. Misha had gone that morning to shower, and he would make them some coffee, and then soon they could get back to normal and forget about the damn system. He was grateful, at least, that he was stuck here with Misha, it lessened the oddity of being out of their normal routine. At least they could fill it with blissful domestic tasks and endless chess games.

Soldier was sitting on the couch with the pieces of his disassembled shotgun in front of him, cleaning it almost on autopilot. He had cleaned it every day this week, religiously, and the television droned on in front of him. He gave a small nod in Medic’s direction, his helmet teetering forwards and then back again, like a bell.

“Coffee?”

“Black.” Soldier answered gruffly.

“ _ Ja _ , I know.”

There were mugs to clean, and Medic’s eyes drifted towards the clock. Scout would be coming in the kitchen any second now to make a sandwich, being the one out of all of them to consistently visit Sniper in his camper with lunch and make sure he hadn’t keeled over. 

He did all the dishes in the sink and looked up at the clock again, suds up to his elbows.

“Scout’s late,” he commented.

A grunt came from the couch.

Medic made the coffee and sat at the table, unfolding the chessboard he had brought with him, and set out all the pieces as slowly as he could. He put his chin in his hand and blew out a stream of air, fluttering his hair. It was unlike Misha to be tardy.

“ _ Gott _ , did he fall asleep in the shower?” Medic murmured, mostly to himself, and scooted out his chair, the furniture screeching along the floor. His boot heels clicked as he walked down the hallway towards the showers, his hands clasped behind his back. It was oddly quiet in the base, when it had seemed yesterday that everyone was determined to make enough noise to raise the dead. When he turned into the showers, the first thing he saw was Scout, clad in only a towel from the waist down. The boy’s reddened face was stricken with terror and he gaped endlessly, his lip trembling like a leaf. When he saw Medic tears began to stream down the side of his cheeks.

“Aw, fuck,” he said, choked.

“Scout?”

He followed the other mercenary’s eyes down to the floor.

“Misha,” Medic shouted, his own fear ringing loudly in his ears. “Misha!”

He fell to his knees beside the great specimen of a man who now lay on the floor of the showers like a massive felled oak, his eyes still open in an expression of surprise, and blood still oozing from the baseball-sized crevasse of his caved in skull. Medic’s fingers were quick on his throat, which was already not regular Misha-warmth, and did not find the regular Misha-heartbeat that he reached up to feel sometimes in the middle of the night for comfort. His heart was a confident, thumping thing, like the heart of an elephant. Something that could not be extinguished. Water began to soak through the knees of his pants.

“He fucking slipped,” Scout hiccuped. “He slipped and hit his head. Oh, God, is he dead?”

Medic raised his head. There was something white-hot behind his eyes, rattling his skull, roping around his tongue. Automatically, his eyes went to the corner of the tiled shower walls that was closest, streaked red with Misha’s blood. He did not say a word as he rose to his feet and sprinted to the medbay. Demo jumped out of the way in the hallway, cursing at him in a friendly manner, but when he watched Medic come back with the medigun clutched in his arms his one eye was wide open. He shouldered the pack and firmly trained the beam on Misha’s form. Scout looked back and forth between Medic and the beam, wiping snot from his nose with that same horrid expression of guilt plastered on his face.

“Holy…” he heard Demo say quietly from the doorway. “What happened?”

Misha refused to move. Medic got to his knees again and felt his pulse, pressing his two fingers hard into the skin. The wound on Misha’s head did not knit itself back together like it was supposed to. He was already gone, Medic realized with a surgical certainty, and behind the purposeful facade that was natural to adopt in the heat of battle or crisis he felt like he was going to pass out.

“Is he-”

“Get out,” he shouted suddenly, more of a scream. “Get out!”

There was a hand on his shoulder. When Medic made the effort to raise his head, his shoulders ached horribly in protest.

“Doctor,” Spy said quietly. 

When he looked into Misha’s eyes he expected them to look right back at him. They were dull, faded, and then two gloved fingers appeared over them and closed the lids. 

“We’ll take care of him. You should get into some dry clothes.” Dell said softly.

Medic shook his head. “No. He’ll come back.”

There was a thick silence. “Doc, he won’t. The system, it’s been off.”

“Come on.” Spy’s hand would not leave his shoulder.

“No, give it a moment. He will come back any minute. I-”

“You’re in shock, mate,” came another low voice from the doorway. “It was an accident. Horrible accident.”

“Now, of all times,” Medic said, and laughed in a high-pitched voice. Spy’s fingers curled away from his shoulder. “When the system is off. But he’ll come back. Just watch.”

A few minutes passed. No one made a noise, and Medic’s brow sunk with the mood in the room.

“I don’t understand,” he said, mostly to himself. “Why isn’t he coming back?”

He was bid to sit on one of the folding chairs that normally lived by the firepit, placed down in front of the grave. The chair still smelled of smoke, and so did the blanket around his shoulders. It had been hours since the sun had sunk low below the horizon, hours since Soldier had climbed from the grave with his shovel, looking awfully somber. Hours after they had all coughed and choked on their words, still thick with disbelief, and held a funeral. Spy had loosened his tie when he had spoken, part of his memorial partially in Russian, before he abruptly turned away and went behind Sniper’s camper for a cigarette. They had let him be, numb, to stare at the fresh earth patted down neatly over the grave, and read the lines of the hasty headstone over and over again. They had stopped correcting him when he insisted Misha should be coming back. 

He studied the ground, his eyes narrowed.

“That was real nice, what you said out there,” Dell said quietly to Spy, raising his beer. A few of them had gathered in the kitchen for a needed post-funeral drink, and the kitchen light seemed dimmer than usual, shadows collecting under the harsh lines on their faces.

Spy gave a half-hearted shrug. “He deserved it.”

“I just can’t believe he’s gone,” Tavish began, his eye searching the darkness behind the couch for answers. “Really, really gone.”

“The doc don’t seem to think so.”

“He’s in shock.” Dell asserted. “It’s hard for us to accept, can you imagine how hard it is for him? He just needs time to realize that it’s permanent. Lord, of all the timings to have an accident.”

They all took to their drinks with sober expressions.

It was difficult to believe a day had already passed. The chessboard still sat untouched on the kitchen table, but the showers had been cleaned. Scout could not bear to look inside when he passed them in the hallway. Medic had finally been persuaded to come inside, out of the cold, but sat awake the next night, watching one light in the medbay flicker.

There was a sharp rapping at the door. Reflexively, Medic jumped to his feet. It sounded like Misha’s knock. But it was only Dell, wearing a grimace and clutching his ungloved, bleeding hand. Medic guided him to the surgical table without another word and reached up to flick on the medigun. A healing beam lazily made its way out of the device and began to knit up the skin.

“I need to get some sleep,” Dell said with a chuckle. “Going to actually cut a finger off next time.”

Medic inclined his head.

“How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Surprised you’re awake.”

“I’m not tired.”

Dell exhaled. Somewhere in the rafters, a dove rustled in its nest. Medic closed his eyes.

“You haven’t tried, doc. You’re waiting. For what? The big guy?”

Medic’s mouth was set in a hard line.

“You’re going to drive yourself crazy. I’m sorry, doc. He ain’t coming back. You just have to accept it.”

Medic could not resist. “I won’t accept it,” he hissed. “I won’t accept failure. I didn’t make a mistake.”

Dell’s brow furrowed. “What the hell are you talking about? His death wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was an accident.”

“ _ Ja _ , I know, I know.” he began to pace. “But he should be back.”

Dell’s tone was wary. “Doc, we went over this. The system is off. He-”

“I performed surgery on Misha before his death.” he said abruptly. “When you informed me about your fears about the severe malfunctioning of the system. I performed experimental surgery in the event that he should die and the system was off, that he would...reanimate.”

“Good Lord,” Dell said quietly. 

“It should have worked. I don’t understand. I didn’t make a mistake.”

“Doc...it ain’t like you had a manual to go off of.”

Medic pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was sure I had succeeded. He should have come back within the hour.”

Dell cast a glance at the ceiling, scratching his beard. “I’m sorry, doc. But I have to ask-what were you expecting if he did come back? Surely, he wouldn’t have total brain function, he wouldn’t be himself.”

“I don’t know!” Medic’s fist slammed onto his desk, sending a teetering stack of papers to the floor. “I saw an opportunity and took it! I said it was experimental. But at least he would be back.”

He had refused to accept to begin to process the thoughts of living without Misha, of the wound in his side becoming real, of the possibility of going on throughout the rest of his life without him. It wouldn’t be. He was always there, and for him to suddenly not be was just impossible.

Dell lowered himself to the ground from the table. “Doc, you can’t fix everything. Believe me, I’ve tried. I can’t imagine what it must be like missing your other half, but he wouldn’t even be himself.” He raised a hand to grasp Medic’s shoulder. “Get some sleep, all right?”

He must have drifted off. The doctor awoke with a start. There was a noise, out in the hallway, like a scraping. He was tired, and his eyelids ached. He fell into the temptation of letting them close again and his head loll back against his shoulders. Then it came again, dragging him from blessed sleep, the damn scraping like someone dragging sandpaper along the walls, and his bloodshot eyes were open like window shutters. They wanted him to get some sleep, and then made a racket doing God-knows-what in the middle of the night? Anger came easily to him, and it propelled him out of the chair and into the hallway.

“Will you kindly stop-”

His voice died in his throat. The hallway was dark, and there was no one in it that he could see. But there was a definite presence. There was something lurking past where his eyes already strained to see.

“Come out,” he said firmly, quelling the shake in his voice.

The scraping started up again. It was getting closer, and Medic wanted to take a few steps down the hallway to flick on the lights, but he had the sudden, rooting fear that whatever in the hallway would unhinge its maw and swallow him whole. He had no weapon on him. He could turn and grab a scalpel from the tray that still waited by the surgical table, but it was too tempting to lecture whoever thought it was a good idea to be creeping around in the hallways at this hour.

“Pyro, is that you?”

“Doctor,” came a rolling, gravelly voice, and Medic’s heart stilled in his chest. Fear began to trickle down his spine to his heels.

“Misha?” he said breathlessly, unbelieving. “Is that you?”

He came into view. Misha was ghostly pale, and leaning heavily against the wall. With every step he took, his shoulder hung limply along the paint, scraping along, but seeing eyes were fixed on him below a caved-in skull. There was a trail of dirt behind him, and every jerking movement shook more from his clothes, spraying pebbles and fragments of roots onto the floor. 

“Doctor,” he said again, and pulled a breath from his dead lungs that rattled.

“What is the racket out here?” Spy’s voice came, hot with interrupted sleep, and the door to his room clanged against the wall.

Medic did not take his eyes off Misha, who was looking back at him.

“ _ Merde _ ,” Spy said. “What have you done?” 


End file.
